


a little girl's heart

by Claudia_bm



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudia_bm/pseuds/Claudia_bm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wynne had known Raina Amell since she was but a child. It was hard to think of her as anything but 'little girl'. She was so used to that version of Raina that even though she had watched her grown up, sometimes little girl still managed to surprise Wynne with her perceptiveness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little girl's heart

**Author's Note:**

> So, spoiler for Dragon Age Origins plus a little deviation from canon. Unbeta.

No matter what anyone said or how anyone viewed them, this was what Wynne saw of them: two little kids got thrust into a war. She watched as they found each other amidst the chaos, the blood and the lost. She watched the way Alistair never let his eyes stray too far from Raina, turned away whenever Raina pulled Alistair aside to kiss him and smiled as she heard Alistair’s surprise little squeak. Maker, but they needed each other, a girl who had never had anything to call her own and a boy who had already lost too much.

It was still a little hard to think of Raina as anything but a little girl.

And so Wynne was so surprised when Raina came to her one day with tears in her big brown eyes. It was quite late and Wynne was only awake because it was her turn to stand guard. She had insisted on it, even though she didn’t have to. Raina came out of Alistair’s tent, wrapped in a blanket. She walked toward the fire, where Wynne was sitting. “May I sit next to you?” She said, barely above a whisper.

“My dear child, you needn’t ask.” Wynne replied and Raina smiled. She looked even younger smiling like that, like she was still a nine year old trailing after Wynne asking about magic all those years ago.

It was not until she had sat down that Wynne’s old eyes noticed there were tears gleaming in her eyes. She was so startled that she didn’t manage to hold in an exclamation: “My dear, what’s wrong?” Raina’s eyes opened upon hearing the words before she closed them and shook her head.

“You remember that time you told me I might have to give up Alistair one day?” She said, drawing the blanket tighter around herself. Wynne waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t, just sat still with her eyes closed and her breath ragged. Her hair, which she used to keep short because of the Circle’s rule, had grown to cover her shoulders. It hid her face when she looked down and Wynne reached out to tuck it back behind her ear.

She still refused to open her eyes.

“Yes my dear, I do. And had I not apologized for being wrong?”

She shook her head again. It then struck Wynne that she had seen the girl do this before. When Raina was first brought to the Circle at the age of six, she had sat on her bed with her forehead on her knees, eyes closed and refusing to believe she was anywhere but her mother’s barn. It took quite a bit of effort to coax the girl out of that. “I don’t think you were wrong anymore.” Raina said, she sounded choked up. “I think he’s going to end it.”

Wynne barely managed to not chuckle: “My dear, have you seen the way he looked at you? That’s not possible.”

Raina smiled at that, a self-deprecating smile. Her thick lips (so full and luscious, so had Alistair said and so had Wynne the unfortunate of overhearing when she walked past his tent that one day) trembled. In fact, her whole body was shaking slightly. “So I have, but it’s not going to matter.” She took a deep breath. “Not when I make him King.”

Silent fell. Wynne raised an eyebrow at the girl. She was, truly, not that awkward little girl who wandered the Circle’s hall anymore. “Are you sure? He doesn’t seem to want to.”

“I know, but who else will be more capable after I kill Loghain?” She shook her head. Wynne didn’t miss how she said ‘I’ but chose not to comment on it. “If I make him King, he will leave me. But I can’t deny him his birthright.”

Wynne sighed. “Maybe things will turn out differently, Raina.” Wynne had always thought that when Raina fell in love, she would be one of those girls who believed that love could conquer anything. Maker, why couldn’t she just be one? Not that it would help in the long run, but at least she would be spared the agony now.

“No, Wynne.” She shook her head. “You have been blunt in the past, please don’t start coddling me now. I know who I am. A commoner and a mage, tainted with darkspawn’s blood. Hardly Queen material. I...” She could no longer hold off the tears. They rolled down her amber cheeks, glistening in the light of the fire. “I have nothing to make claim over him. When he is King, he will have no use of me.”

She broke down into small, hiccuppy little sobs and it was all Wynne could do to gather Raina into her arms and let the little girl muffle the sound into her shoulders like she did years ago.

If Wynne had thought something would change after that, she would have been surprised because nothing did. Alistair was still the oblivious lovesick puppy he was. Leliana still made cooing noise and Morrigan still pretended to gag whenever she saw the other two kissing. But she hadn’t, so she wasn’t surprised. A little girl’s broken heart hardly mattered. The world would go on the same.

But if she was to be honest, Wynne didn’t believe Alistair would willingly let go. She had watched as Raina, from a quiet, unassuming little girl whom Wynne herself had known from the day she was brought into the Circle, grew up into the woman she was now, fiercer and more stubborn than ever. And she had seen as Alistair, the naïve boy who laid his heart bare too easily, transitioned to a man who would not be stepped on. Maybe Alistair of when she first met him would let duty come first and marry a noble. But Alistair today was hardly like that anymore.

And Wynne was proven right when, many weeks after that night, she watched the little girl, dressed all in white, walk up those steps to where her happiness was and kiss him in front of the whole kingdom. Morrigan made gagging noise again while Leliana giggled and tried to wipe her face discretely with her sleeve. And none of the tears shed that day was because of sadness.

**Author's Note:**

> I jotted this down real quick because I have too many feels. Kinda plan to expand this into something bigger but that will have to come later. I have never romanced Alistair before my latest playthrough what a crime. I always headcanon Wynne as having motherly love towards the children in the Circle so yeah


End file.
